


Giveaway fic #5

by ConsultingPurplePants



Series: 500 Tumblr Followers Giveaway Fics [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Kissing, M/M, Pining, Sign Language, enjoyment of potatoes, victorian!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 05:44:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6226270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConsultingPurplePants/pseuds/ConsultingPurplePants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock runs an experiment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giveaway fic #5

**Author's Note:**

> AND HERE'S THE LAST ONE! This one is for [@bahkris](http://bahkris.tumblr.com). 
> 
> The prompt was:  
>  _hi, i won a ficlet?!?!?! very exciting. if i'm not too late, that is. so, i'd love to read something about sign language. thank you so much! <3_

Watson watches, slightly bewildered, as Holmes signs their reason for being here. He can’t quite follow along at the speed that Holmes is signing; he briefly spots something about strangers, breakfast, and two people who belong together or are in a relationship, he isn’t quite sure about that sign. When Wilder turns to him and (Watson is fairly sure) compliments him on _The Blue Carbuncle_ , it’s all he can do to try to answer back.

He knows he’s done something wrong when both Holmes and Wilder turn to look at him like he’s grown a second head. Nothing for it now, though, so he repeats what he’s just said and hopes it’s correct, although now that he thinks of it, that last sign may have been _Potato_.

Or was it?

He sighs, and realizes he’ll have to ask Holmes, who is currently signing something completely unintelligible at him. Glancing up, he sees that Wilder is smiling, and Watson rolls his eyes, realizing Holmes is probably mocking his lack of skill at sign language.

He’s nearly certain now that he’s just said _Potato_.

He awkwardly follows Holmes out of the room, hoping this never comes up again.

***

Of course, it comes up again.

Two weeks after the resolution of the case, Watson stops by 221B for tea and finds Holmes waiting for him with a devilish grin.

“My dear Watson, do you recall your simply _mediocre_ usage of sign language at the Diogenes club?” he asks, his teeth glinting unnaturally. Watson swallows.

“I… Yes, Holmes. I do,” he replies.

“Wonderful. Then we will start your remedial lessons right away!” cries Holmes, and Watson is never able to resist him when he’s in one of his moods. His eyes are bright, his cheeks flushed, and Watson can’t help but think about how beautiful Holmes is.

The long line of his body twists every which way as he twirls around the room, tidying up where he can so that he and Watson can sit in their armchairs. Watson watches, entranced, as a single curl comes free from all of the product in Holmes’s hair and comes to rest delicately on his temple. He swallows back the urge to tuck it behind Holmes’s ear. Such things are generally frowned upon, and he’s married.

Besides, and more importantly, Holmes would never return his affections. Leaving 221B had been a better option than languishing there for the rest of his days, his heart cracking a little bit more each time Holmes smiled at him.

“Watson, are you listening to _anything_ I am saying to you!?” comes Holmes’s irritated (lovely) voice. Watson’s head snaps up.

“I’m terribly sorry, Holmes, I didn’t sleep as well as I should have. What were you saying?” he blurts out. Holmes squints at him suspiciously, and for a horrible moment Watson fears he has just seen right through him, but the moment passes, and Holmes simply says, “Come here. Sit down and face me.”

Holmes signs, _Good afternoon, Watson_ , and so begin the lessons that Holmes will torture him with for the next six months.

***

Two months into his… _remedial sign language lessons_ (he shudders to even think of the term), Watson starts to notice that just as he leaves Holmes’s rooms, Holmes always signs something to him, nearly as an afterthought. It always begins with a regular _Good-bye, see you next week_ , but then he does something odd, and quick, and Watson never seems to be able to see it.

It takes another month for him to realize what Holmes is doing. It’s a quick point of a finger towards himself, a split-second clasping of his hands to his chest, and another quick point at the door.

Unfortunately, Watson’s only tutor is Holmes, and Holmes does this so quickly that Watson begins to wonder if he is meant to be noticing it at all.

He tells himself he’ll wait a few more weeks to see if it keeps happening.

***  
It does. Like clockwork, each time Watson is leaving the rooms in Baker Street, Holmes signs the same thing, and Watson is no closer to figuring out what it means. He wants to ask Holmes, but something instinctively tells him that this is something too personal. He’d spent a week thinking it was Holmes’s sign name, but then dismissed the thought when, during another, slightly more successful visit to the Diogenes club, he had seen Mycroft’s sign name for Sherlock (something involving bees? He would have to watch more closely).

It is only nearly six months after the first lesson that Watson finally realizes what it means, Holmes pointing to himself, clasping his hands to his chest, then pointing towards the door. As he ambles down Baker Street, walking stick firmly clasped, he happens upon a young couple with a pram. They are stopped, and the husband is leaning over the pram and making silly grimaces at the baby inside, who starts to giggle. Watson slows slightly, the sight warming his heart, just as the husband peeks over the top of the pram at his wife, who… points at herself, clasps her hands over her heart, and points at her husband. He repeats the sign at her, and they smile, and that’s when Watson realizes that Holmes wasn’t pointing at the door.

He barely hears his walking stick clatter to the ground as he rushes back to Holmes’s rooms, Mary be damned.

***  
Watson leaps up the seventeen steps and bursts into the sitting room, barely hearing Mrs Hudson’s shout of surprise downstairs. Holmes’s head jerks up, his face openly shocked as he tries to extricate himself from where he’d been curled up in Watson’s armchair, and any uncertainty Watson may have felt evaporates completely.

Slightly clumsily, he points at himself, clasps his hands over his chest, then points back at Holmes.

_I love you_.

Holmes nearly faints in surprise.

“ _John_ ,” he breathes, and it’s barely a second before Watson is pulling him into an embrace, stretching up to press his lips to his temple. He feels Holmes’s arms tighten around him.

“Is this what you wanted, Sherlock?” he whispers against his lips, and Holmes shivers against him as he presses his lips to his. They’re warm, and soft, and Watson doesn’t understand why they didn’t do this sooner. He pulls back, panting, and sees that a curl has come loose, and, feeling as though all of his wildest dreams are coming true, he reaches up to delicately tuck it behind Holmes’s ear.

“I love you, Sherlock,” he says, and leans in to—

***  
Sherlock’s eyes fly open with a gasp, his hands stretching out to the sides to steady himself before he falls off his own sofa. It takes him a moment to realize where he is (his own sitting room, of course), and when he hears John laugh behind him, he nearly falls off the sofa again. He’d nearly forgotten John had moved back in; it’s always difficult for him to remember that that particular dream had come true.

“You back, then? I was starting to get worried,” John chuckles behind him, as if the most important thought experiment of Sherlock’s life had not just been carried out. “You’ve been in there nearly all day!”

None of this is important, none of this is— If there’s one thing Sherlock’s learned from this particular experiment, it’s that it doesn’t matter where they are, _when_ they are, how illegal it is, how _married_ John is… It will always work.

This confirmation gives Sherlock the courage it takes to turn around, look directly into John’s suddenly startled eyes, and say, “John Hamish Watson, I have been in love with you for the better part of the last six years.”

There’s a startled gasp from above him, and then, “You _git_ , you absolute _git, how could you_ —.”

And then John’s lips are on his, and John’s arms are wrapped warmly around his body, and John’s tears are on his face, and Sherlock stops thinking about the thought experiment entirely.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you everyone so, so much for all your support, I love each and every one of you :)  
> I'm [@consultingpurplepants](http://consultingpurplepants.tumblr.com) on tumblr as well, come give me a shout! <3


End file.
